Absenteeism in Remote Learning

The concept in this article that caught my attention is that in this remote environment, we have lost our 'carrots' - the incentive structure we relied on in the past to motivate students to attend and persist. I believe we still have incentives to offer, but we may have to rethink and reframe them. For instance, if we used to take a class on a campus tour to encourage transitioning to post-secondary training, explore virtual campus tours that may have been created by the institution in the past year. If we know students were motivated to attend because classmates were expecting them or for the social component, create a text or email chain where absent students are contacted by fellow classmates, not just you the teacher so they know they are missed. Or if we had a system to honor student achievements such as attendance, Constitution test passes, or HSE credentials earned, make an 'honor wall' on your institutional social media where students can still receive that recognition. 

I know it's not the same - nothing is the same - but I believe the alternative strategies we've been developing this year and the creativity we've been cultivating have generated some great new approaches that we can use in adult ed from now on, pandemic or no pandemic. 

One other idea: My classroom this year is conducted entirely asynchronously, which is a wonderful way to accommodate students with absentee issues. When life intervenes, school can wait. Then when life calms down, the student can place school back in the priority position and catch up at their own pace. In this type of class we miss out on the benefits of live meetings, so I wouldn't recommend this delivery for every classroom. But programs could have at least one entirely asynchronous class available for each content area and level. Students who cannot maintain attendance at live sessions can still be served with care and rigor in an asynchronous class. 

For the record, I have NEVER been a fan of education based on some time-based system. I have heard many arguments for it, but I have not heard any arguments that highlight how our current time-based system is beneficial to the clients rather than the practitioners. 

As Anita and the author of the article highlight, much of our motivational practice in education involves metaphorical sticks or carrots. These attempts at providing external motivation have helped some learners push though a few hard times, but I wonder if we have data on how many of effect those external motivations contributed to learners' finding success in our programs. 

I wonder how this motivation practice mutates if our focus was more on proficiency-based systems in which there is a finite checklist of skills that need to be demonstrated before credits or certifications are received. Each of the checklist items can be chunked out into mini stages of progress that are demonstrative in such a way that successes along the path are early and often. 

If we each reflect on major motivations in our life, especially for important aspects of our life, it may be interesting to compare notes on what we found the gave us the most drive. For me, my main motivations came from finding mini successes along the way or in some few cases desperation forced me to just try to push through something in the hopes that positives would result. In general, it has been those mini successes that have pushed me the furthest down any path in life. Curious if others are also primarily motivated by mini successes as powerfully or are there other motivators that drive and really push you through the difficult parts of life?

A bit of a personal story to help illustrate. How do the carrot/stick motivations help me loose the 100 pounds I need to loose before I have my 4th heart attack in my life? Obviously, there have been many carrots and sticks offered through the first 3 episodes so the motivation to loose that weight should be firmly in place .... and yet ... well for over a decade those carrots and sticks have simply helped me feel stuck as a victim rather than engaging in practices I am very well versed in that would help. I know all about diet, I know all about exercise options and their benefits, I know all about stress management, I know all the fears and consequences and even ramifications of how my passing would effect those I love and yet despite all of this, that 100 lbs of deadly extra remains. It is that personal engagement that is missing and that has to come from within me. As I already shared I am motivated primarily by mini successes that are quick and often. Nice and easy to theorize, but then to get things rolling within the unprecedented craziness we are all experiencing adds another challenge (excuse). In fact, we may see with our learners that there always seems to be excuses or rational that pop up. I know in my issues shared above that I am so full of excuses I feel I am wondering if I should add it to my resume some time soon. This self defense mechanism distracts from focusing on that next mini success that will help me pull myself forward. 

So, what works in terms of helping others find those mini successes? Having others break down huge goals into little, manageable goals is a great help. Having people share what a good diet looks like is one thing, but a friend offering a fully fleshed out recipe guide for the week complete with recipes and shopping lists for each can be incredibly helpful! In a similar way, if I see that passing English 3 is all chunked out into smaller tasks that might be much easier for me to do. "Find a book that teaches me how to do something ...OK got that. Read and summarize 20 pages a day...ok I can do that when I'm ...." I now have a map to follow and track my progression. 

Anita's suggestion of having asynchronous offerings really helps learners focus on what is my next step. I wonder, Anita, if those asynchronous offerings have finite end dates or would they be open, (when you complete all of this you get credit for this course)?

In a time-based system, where the focus is so much on "keeping up" it is almost impossible to also help keep the focus on that next mini-step that is going to help provide that mini-success people need to keep moving forward.